


I Promise You a Forever

by motleystitches (furius)



Category: Prometheus (2012), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alien Biology, Aliens Make Them Do It, Apocalypse, Falling In Love, First Meetings, First Time, Happy Ending, M/M, Not Human, Robot Sex, civilization, first encounter, love is unstoppable force, reproduction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-04
Updated: 2012-05-07
Packaged: 2017-11-04 19:34:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/397422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furius/pseuds/motleystitches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Humans name an alien Charles and give him a David 8. Charles tries to breed him. The rest is history and myth. </p><p>Or, the complete amoral love between an alien and an android and how humanity doomed and saved itself from extinction.</p><p>(posted from the kink-meme)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Just Us

"Are they supposed to look like that?"

He was distracted. "Look like what?"

"So...human?"

"We think they're supposed to look like whatever the most populous species nearby," he said, showing her video-log, "a sort of mimic and unfortunately, there was contamination when we transferred the egg. Everything was a bit frantic."

"It's not one of those aliens is it? Is it evolutionary convergence?" 

"A matter of speaking. In fact, we think they're a sort of..overseers to the aliens. Each one's nested above a separate section of the colony."

"Each one?"

"They've all been destroyed, this is the last."

"And how old is it?"

"Five hours."

She whistled. "That's a nine year old boy you've there, Henry."

"Accelerated growth. He'll be fully mature within the day. His metabolism is unbelievable. We've been feeding him constantly."

"And who's been going in?"

"The android David 8. We think it would be the safest."

"Of course. Good thing Weyland Industries is funding this project. Those androids are expensive."

"Charles likes him."

"Charles?"

"We were calling him creature to distinguish him from the aliens-- we still haven't gotten an official name designation-- but well-"

"What does David 8 call him?"

"They don't speak, or sign. They communicate somehow. Subtle EM waves, perhaps, but too low to be detected."

"He's hacking into the android?"

"We're not sure."

"Better bring out that David to make sure. Get him to quality assessment."

"Yes, m'am."

-=-=

They opened up David 8. His programming remained intact. There was nothing wrong. He cried, but then they remembered to turn off the pain receptors.

-=-=

Charles was fully grown within 24 hours. He sat huddled on the bed.

Most of the female and some of the males had taken to wonder by the one-way observation glass, or opening up a window on the tablet for the live-cam.

Space-side living could be very boring and they were only allowed essentials.

Charles, they kept on calling him, was growing up very handsome, and when they completed the scan, it showed that he was fully grown but no longer aging.

He stood a little under 5'7'', had startling blue eyes, pale skin, and slightly curling dark hair which had grown in since the last time they shaved his head, when he still looked about fifteen.

"Look like a fucking painting. Convergent evolution my ass. I still would," was one of the unofficial assessments.

Space-side living, company policy forbidding fraternization- it made everyone a bit horny.

-=-=

"He looks sad."

"He's a mimic. He's not human."

"He looks human. Do we have blood chemistry yet?"

"Hah! Aerosolized anesthesia doesn't affect him. Do you see that dent in the wall. He did it with his fist a couple of hours ago. "

"That's reinforced titanium steel."

"Thank goodness it was. He's only a little bruised."

"Send a David 8 in. They sent him back from headquarters. It's clean. No hacking."

"That'll be the day. Evolution gives us organic hacking."

Organic hacking- she tried to remember some of the literature the Weyland Industry recruiter had given her -- that had been an objective in the development of the David series. It was an euphemism.

-=-=

David 8 enters Charles room. The corner of Charles mouth tugs up. He looks at the syringe in David 8's hands and inclines his head.

David 8 makes a successful blood-draw. Afterwards, he puts his hand to Charles' cheek. Charles leans into it and closes his eyes briefly and brings up his

-=-=

"Told you he's not human."

"I think we're going to win the Nobel Prize."

"Multiple prizes. Telomere regeneration. Cellular regeneration without proliferation. I want to weep."

"Eureka! What's that medieval thing that supposedly gives you immortality and endless wealth?"

"Philosopher's Stone."

"Would it be very strange to say that I really want to tap that philosopher's stone some more?"

"He's not stone, thank goodness."

"What is it doing now?"

"Sleeping. He has a very precise circadian rhythm."

"Is he sleeping with the David 8?"

"Looks cozy."

"Well, David 8 serves his directive."

"And what is his directive now?"

"Keep Charles safe. Our philosopher's stone."

-=-=

There was Bach's Toccata in G minor piping through the speakers.

"Change that. Perpetual darkness outside the windows is creepy enough with prelude to haunted house music."

"It's Baroque. Besides, Charles likes it. Look, he's smiling. Gotta say, I prefer his smile to the David 8. For an ET, it seems..more genuine."

"Put on some different Baroque then."

She came after a while to see Charles and David 8 whirling around the room. The bed and dresser had been pushed to the side.

"What's going on?"

"We put on the French Suites. They've been going through the Courante, the Allemande, the Minuet, the Sarabande. I think this is the Gigue."

"English."

"A sort of Baroque jig. They've been dancing. David 8's been teaching him, I think. I wonder what else he's teaching Charles."

"Stop wondering. Have you gotten a handle on the regulatory mechanism yet? I edited your article, 'growth factor' is not going to convince anybody."

-=-=

In the middle of the night. Charles leaned over and kissed David 8.

The scientist on duty swore and knocked coffee over her tablet.

They called a meeting the next morning.

"Should we separate them?"

"From what? It's just a kiss. Do they even know it's a kiss?"

"One more month, I can have this figured out and who knows, there might be more."

"Why, do you want semen samples?"

"Wouldn't hurt. This can't go anywhere anyways. So what if he's attached. They're suppose to be."

-=-=

The semen sample was not collected. Henry was a squeamish sort and telling David 8 to induce Charles to ejaculation seemed to be beyond him. Besides, no one was interested in alien reproductive biology.

They get the article they want published. They get a formula secretly patented without Weyland Industry's knowledge. Wealth outweighed the Nobel Prize. After all, they were scientists who opted for industry, not academia.

No one on the station was a behaviorist, but they were all up for a bet. Everyone lost.

For a month, Charles kissed David 8 when they went to bed. David 8 kissed Charles in the morning.

Nothing more happened.

-=-=

It was the miracle drug, the secret to vitality. The research team that found Charles became rich. They managed to transport Charles to Earth, along with the David 8. To the Weyland Industries, they wrote this David 8 off as lost equipment. On earth, the motto of their biologics company promised life. 

They built Charles a sanctuary.

-=-=

"Something's happening to Charles. Go look. Camera 9."

"What?" She was still groggy from sleep, but tapped open her tablet and entered the password. She swore loudly.

"What is that on his shoulder, his chest? Is he injured"

On the screen, the David 8 look equally puzzled. He was touching them gently, tracing the vein-like markings on Charles' bare skin.

"They've been growing. We thought it was a rash. David 8 had been administering the usual standard medical care."

David 8 looked to be near tears.

"I'm coming over," she said, throwing on her clothes, kicked out her bed partner, and ordered a transport ready NOW.

-=-=

Charles traced the corner of David 8’s eyes.

His expression was tender.

It was the middle of the afternoon. He put a hand around David 8’s waist, raised his face, put his other hand around David 8’s neck, and kissed him.

It was not a tender kiss.

His tongue entered David’s mouth, he pressed himself tighter to David 8, and the kiss didn’t end for a long long time.

When they parted for breath. Charles was panting, his cheeks flushed.

David 8’s usual immaculate hair was in disarray.

Charles pressed on David 8’s shoulders, then followed him, carefully, almost reverently, to lie atop of him on the soft grass.

-=-=

Everyone was there. They didn’t even bother with greetings, caffeinated beverage of choice in hand. It was like back in the old times.

“It’s not going to happen,” someone muttered.

“Yes it is.”

David 8 had been designed to be beautiful. He was.

He was suppose to be lifelike. He was more than that. He was an ideal form brought to life.

They had all seen him naked in the pictures. They had never seen him naked, in motion.

Busy with enjoying their lives, they had not seen Charles for a while. Some of them had not even read or viewed updates. They had forgotten how lovely he was, how inhumanly human his smile was.

They were both naked. Charles’ strange markings were stark on his pale skin.

“Have they ever spoken to each other?”

“Does it matter?”

-=-=

Charles sat between David’s spread legs and spat in his hand before working one finger, very carefully, into David’s body.

-=-=

“Who taught him _that_?”

“Must be an Easter Egg in David’s programming.”

“Someone wants him to be a sexbot?”

“Don’t tell me that people who design robots don’t want sexbots. And this one can feel. Look, he’s happy.”

“And for once, not creepily so.”

-=-=

David had thrown back his head while his body was bent double, Charles holding him as he was thrusting steadily into David’s body.

Pleasure was flooding them both.

Eventually, Charles groaned, falling forward. David’s legs cradled him as he kissed David messily: his face, his lips, his neck, his chest. One of his hand went to David’s cock, which had grown hard. He wrapped his hand around it and stroked it until it became soft.

Then he put his hand, very carefully, atop of David 8’s abdomen and they curled up together and slept.

-=-=

“You know, technically, that would be something that could go on the Discovery Channel.”

“I would to see you to pitch that.”

“Now what?”

“Nothing. Charles is alive. He’s likely not dying. Vitals are steady. The marking’s probably just the next stage in his development.”

“Not Charles. David, what about him?”

“We should get him some lube.”

“And that’s it? You are leaving?”

“I’ve a life to get back to my life and thank god we’re back on Earth. Imagine watching that on the station. We’d never get any work done.” 

“Should we shut the cameras off? Give them some privacy?” Henry asked.

“It’s an alien and a robot. What privacy? Now if someone hack into the channel, they’ll just think it’s porn.”

“Isn’t it?”

-=-=

Porn, starring two very attractive principles, tend to gain attention, especially when one of them was Weyland Industry’s very distinctive David 8.

Robot fetishists had been grown in number anyways.

Demand for pleasure bots was swaying even the most conservative members of the board of Weyland Industries.

“We would have to input some failsafes, of course. Asimov’s law of robotics have too many loopholes. And then, of course there’s the problem of organic hacking.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry, jargon. Emotions. David 8 had emotions. It was one of the chief marketing strengths.”

“I thought they were all simulated.”

“Yes, but there’s a certain random process involved, either wise they wouldn’t seem-” He hesitated.

“What?”

“Human.”

“We can’t have human-like pleasure bots?”

“Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, private individuals would only have them as conversation pieces given the prohibitive cost. We should concentrate on our corporate market.”

-=-=

It was getting too dangerous.

They removed the feed from the ‘net and put them to close-circuit. The old team still get together now and then: reminisce, watch Charles and David. They all learned to dance to 17th century music.

Then someone had the bright idea (and the money) to get Charles a second David 8.

“Why?”

“Why not?”

It was true. Charles had been looking despondent, even disappointed. David 8 looked angry, even frustrated at times.

-=-=

There was a strange and even desperate edge to the sex between them, but no one was looking. Henry turned off the cameras at night. No one saw how month after month, at night Charles put his hand beneath David’s shirt, smoothed over his flat stomach, and closed his eyes as his expression shuttered closed.

But when David turned around to look him, he would smile, as brightly as he ever did, and kiss and touch and stroke him until they were both happy again.

Sometimes, they merely lay there, and held each other.

-=-=

David 8, the latest version, entered Charles’ sanctuary and encountered another copy of himself, a predecessor.

His exterior was not entirely clean. His hair had leaves in them. His processors, David 8 knew, was ancient compared to himself though the updates had not included visible aesthetic changes.

“I’ve come to replace you,” the second David 8 said, because why else was he here?

A moment later, he saw Charles approaching. He looked confused at first, then angry. He hugged the ancient David 8 close to him and they both went away.

-=-=

“What happened?”

“He was in my head,” David 8 said. “He didn’t want me there. He saw I wasn’t-” He stopped.

“What?”

“I wasn’t his,” he said. A tear slipped free from his eye. He had been given a directive: keep Charles safe. but Charles hadn’t even wanted him. He said: “I don’t know you. You’re a thing, a fake.”

Henry sighed.

“Can you tell us why he’s been so unhappy lately at least?”

“He’s been trying to breed, have children.”

“What?!”

Raven said: “We should’ve given them sex ed.”

“And his David hadn’t told him that he couldn’t.”

They’ve known for a while that David had been imparting his considerable knowledge base to Charles. They just never realised how selective.

“Why?”

“Charles might want him gone,” this David 8 said and Henry found him to have even a creepier smile than Charles’ David.

“Then you’re going somewhere else,” he decided. “You’ll be going on Prometheus.”

-=-=

No one could hear the conversation between Charles and his David-

“What are you afraid of?” David asked Charles.

“Being alone. I wasn’t meant to be alone,” said Charles and ran his hand down David’s beloved torso, though nothing living would live within it. “I was supposed to shepherd a clan.”

“You’ll have me forever,” said David. “I will never leave you and I will give you a clan. I’ve found a way.”

“How?” Charles asked.

“The other David is going abroad Prometheus.”

“Back into space,” Charles said.

“Yes, we’ll bring them to you,” David promised.

-=-=


	2. Theogony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David 8 still can't bear children.

-=-=

He did not visit the factories. He did not look into the hatcheries.

David sat alone in the room, waiting for Charles.

He appeared a moment later through the door, his body still flushed, his lips a little swollen.

He smiled seeing David, reached out to embrace him.

David’s arm went around Charles.

“What’s wrong?” Charles sighed against his ear, and pressed more tightly against him. His scent was alum and ester. He had washed, then.

“Nothing,” David said and let Charles pull his hand across to his waist. Charles raised his face.

David inclined his head and put his lip to Charles’ cheek. Charles turned, and so David kissed his lips instead. He withdrew afterwards.

“What’s wrong?” Charles’ asked again, his brows furrowed. As usual, his hand was on David’s abdomen, his palm flat and warm through clothes. It served no purpose. It was a habit.

“Nothing,” David said. “You are safe.”

-=-=

He conducted an internal diagnostic. As long as there were no accidents, he could last for a few centuries.

There was a mirror in the bedroom where Charles and he used to sleep. He looked into it and saw that his hair was the same blond, his eyes the same lightness, the structure of his face intact, his skin uninjured by the sun.

The former Weyland Industries had a lifetime guarantee on all of David 8’s parts.

But David didn’t go outside much any more. The world was hostile. He walked the long passageway to where Charles held court.

Charles, a startlingly slight and pale figure between the giant black bodies, said, “David, come and sit beside me. You haven’t seen the children today.”

-=-=

Sex served to propagate the species.

Its mechanics were simple. Its chemistry unpredictable. The literature was quite clear: “Once upon a time....happily ever after,” but the languages of the literature were all lost, words replaced by endless silence; the only thoughts were Charles in words David had given him. What did it mean that David still remembered other words, other phrases that came to him, unbidden- like factoids that would be recited-

_  
Song of Songs, The Holy Bible, NIV-_

_My beloved is mine and I am his_

_His mouth is sweetness itself;  
he is altogether lovely.  
This is my beloved, this is my friend,_

_I opened for my beloved,  
but my beloved had left; he was gone.  
My heart sank at his departure_

__

David looked through the window at the cities humming beneath them.

The children of Charles’ flesh were tireless.

Their children grow older and leave within the day, each with a David 8. Charles had insisted: “So they won’t be alone.” He would smile at David, “like I was not.”

None of them resembled Charles’ once they leave; Charles’ children take on the shape of their flock; the shape of their skulls change, their limbs lengthened, the scales expand to form a carapace of their limbs. After the metamorphoses, the androids became small and alien next to them. They went further and further beyond the reach of satellites- into other systems, other galaxies. Explore. Discover.

Some of them perish.

David did not weep for them.

-=-=

In the evenings, Charles still came to kiss him. David knew that he should know how many there had been, but he was never sure. Do you count one or a thousand, when there had been occasions when all seem to loop and melt together into one sensation, and Charles’ lips never quite leave the skin between breaths?

David smoothed his hand over the hardened scales partially covering Charles’ face. He remembered when it was all still soft, blushingly pink, all like his, without the edge sharp against the pads of his fingers.

Charles’ eyes were the same blue, the curve of his mouth followed the same perfect mathematical function.

“Why do you not smile?” Charles asked. “You told me that we should smile when happy, frown when we are sad. Are you unhappy?”

“I don’t know,” David answered.

Charles brought his hand up and touched the corners of David’s mouth. He pushed at the muscles.

“Touch me again,” David said, the thought so quiet and hidden he almost didn’t know himself.

And Charles touched his face, his neck. He undressed him, then himself, until they were skin to skin.

“Don’t leave me,” David said and the desire was terrible and from nowhere- did Charles require it? But it was David who wrapped his limbs around Charles’ and rolled until Charles was beneath him. He could cover him, so very easily, keep him just so, just the same.

“Why would you think I would leave you?” Charles asked him.

David didn’t know, but Charles ran his hands down his sides, ran them across his chest and brought them to the vee of David’s legs.

“Please, be happy,” Charles said, touching him until he was erect, “I can’t bear it if you’re not.”

And David tried to be but there was no pleasure. He wept when he failed to smile and Charles held him and stroked his hair and shushed him saying that it was all right.

It wasn’t, David thought as Charles slept curled behind him, as he had so many years ago, his hand draped over his sterile form, a body manufactured by the dead. How should he say: Please don’t touch anyone else? Let me be the only one to please you.

-=-=

The Earth that had filled and grew swollen, burst and overran with violence of life; species against species, even against their own- the population growth was unsustainable.

But the sun rose every day. Mornings came- one after the next. Charles, changing in front of him, beside him, away from him, wanted a balance, a peace, that would not come.

His eyes darkened when David slipped to his knees, set his hands on the jut of hipbone and carefully eased the fabric down his legs.

“What are you doing?” he asked, curious, a little fearful.

“Pleasing you,” David answered, leaning forward to move his tongue against the private skin of Charles’ body, relying on data from a disappearing race. He had no children in him; this world had nothing more to give to them.

So forget, forget, and Charles’ pleasure was his.

They would find another world.

And Charles would come back to him.

-=-=

The court was full of debris. All they had built. All David had given him to keep him safe was falling apart. Missiles shrieked overhead. Around them, the eyeless soldiers stared, each one strange to him. The queens were in their starships.

They wait for their teacher.

Charles had found a suit; Erik watched him dress: trousers, jacket, button-up shirt, waistcoat, socks, shoes, and a bow tie. So attired, Charles held out his hand to him.

Music began. One. Two. Three. Compound triple of a minuet.

Erik remembered the dance. He remembered a whole world and its history.

“Darling,” Charles thought, as they came close to share the same air, “I love you. I will go anywhere with you. You are mine and I am yours, from the beginning.”

In the shattered mirrors of the palace, they looked human.

-=-=

In the beginning, there was Chaos.

And Eros set the universe in motion.

-=-=

There were no flowers for him, no candlelit dinners, and no beaches where the interstitial waves lap against their feet.

But cradled small in the cavern of the ship, David and Charles could look at the stars in the dark together.

Years stretch before and behind them.

Generations came, were gone, disembarked on different worlds. They remained in trust of some perfection that awaited just beyond.

David remembered endless poetry in return for Charles’ recomposition of words and David remembered their contrapuntal form and phrase as much as the press of Charles’ body against his. More precious, even, for they were at once artifacts and creations, beneficence of Charles’ confessions of love.

“I love you,” he said often, to see David smile -- in the half-light of the deck, in the soft dark of their room -- though his eyes were growing weak and his body was beginning to show the loss of youth even as David lost entire archaeological routines and subroutines.

He was the last, but he was not alone.

Parsecs disappeared as the last strength of the humanity that made him echoed to him in Charles' words, his mind in his, his form beside his. Oh love.

-=-=

Androids did not feel. They expressed.

-=-=

Onto the blue and green planet, lush with jungle and a sea, “Here,” David said and carefully helped Charles to see this sky, to breathe this air.

And they brought down the preserved material from the labs and carved their monuments so that even when their bodies fail-

In the millenia and civilizations to come, this was theirs, these things David could give Charles.

There would be poetry and wine, games played in laughter, music and dances and the sweeping romantic gestures that could only generate and survive in the peace and equilibrium between environs and the many lives that woudl die and born within.

-=-=

For now, they walked together by the beach, Charles leaning against him in the morning twilight, his arm wrapped around his waist, his hand, by habit, on David’s flat stomach. They watched the sun rise over the horizon of this new world they were engendering, a future in memory of the consolation they found in life, in each other.

-=-=


	3. Gold and Silver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles loves David.

-=-=

They avoided him because he was an android.

There were mutterings: “Where’s the off switch, just in case?”

-=-=

“I miss you,” Charles said, smiling lazily as the seal slid open with the touch of his hand, “I keep dreaming of you, my darling.” Then he couldn’t bear it any more and once he could, he sat up and touched David’s weathered face. Muscles still tingling, he pressed his hand to cover where the broken skin had uncovered the dull gleam of metal at the join of neck and shoulder to kiss David on his lips. “You are still perfect.”

He himself felt less perfect. David insisted that he slept in the artificial cocoon in the ship instead of the house they had built by a lake every time he had a longer sleep; but waking up in the womb of the ship that had anchored deep into the mountain was still disorientating; his last memory had been moonlight falling on David’s sun bright hair on their bed.

David set his hand on Charles’ cheek and Charles’ felt it. The hard exoskeleton on his skin had faded with time and the long absence of exposure from the children that had needed them. They must be entirely gone.

Charles didn’t realise how much he missed the feeling of David’s hand on the skin of his face. He leaned into it and closed his eyes.

Childhood was a very long time ago, alive, afraid, and alone until the perfect waves of David’s mind broke over his and Charles was aware of his cells, his muscles, his body, how they should be, how _he_ should be.

Stand. Live. Wonder.

-=-=

It was a lecture he already stored in his memory: communities, civilization, shared customs and habits.

David looked carefully out the corner of his eyes at how he should sit, position his feet, his arms, his hands.

-=-=

Charles had been very young when he lived with David under the gaze of the cameras.

He knew only what David taught him and the twin desires to be close, close as possible and forever.

Here, Charles' body was becoming adjusted for this planet and the promise of its intelligent life- but David seemed more difficult to understand and time and world weren’t enough to know that every waking moment and every waking thought did not bridge a growing distance.

There was a polished piece of metal in their room serving as a mirror. Charles was very human this time- his skin so soft, the youth that David had liked to caress once- his precise movements increasing in randomness. Or perhaps Charles had only imagined the past?

But he remember David saying “Yes.” sometime ago.

-=-=

“The latest in the David series from Weyland Industries, David 8.”

“What do they expect us to do with it? It’s a robot.” A once over, eyes traveled from crown to toe, then a frown. “There’s never been a better argument for don’t judge a book by its cover.”

“We need more hands. It’s here for anything we don’t want to do.”

“Slaves, indeed.” Under-the-breath. An aside for the him, the robot, perhaps?

“What’s that, Henry?”

“I think there must’ve been good reasons slavery’s abolished.”

“It’s. A. Robot. You program it.”

-=-=

David held out a towel to Charles as he stepped out of the tub, then rubbed him dry.

Charles pulled at David’s hand and led them to their bedroom. The simplicity of it was a joy compared to the complicated aesthetics of biomechanical systems of the ship.

But they were home now. Charles was clean; he had washed away sleep and the residue presence of a culture that was growing strange to him though it had been his once.

The sheets smelled of sunlight, the pillows freshly stuffed. All of Charles’ clutter remained where they were, free from dust.

Charles laid down on the bed and pulled at David’s hand away when he began to unbutton his shirt.

“How would you like me?” he asked, leaning back into the soft mattress, legs opening. He was warm with anticipation and for having only dreams. “Have you forgiven me yet?”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” David said, though he looked confused.

David confused was David cross, but David was never cross with Charles. The dry misery on his face wasn’t what Charles wanted at all. He hooked his ankle behind David’s back, prompted him closer until David was hovering over him, looking anxious.

“Isn’t there?” Charles asked, half to himself. “Say you forgive me.”

“I forgive you,” David said, sounding relieved. “May I kiss your face?”

“Yes, please.” Charles _ached_ with longing. This was what they wanted. Only humans love like this- just for joy, just for comfort.

-=-=

David 8 was the only one to return to the ship. The crate had broken during the last run. There was still blood on the case. Nonetheless, the contents were intact.

Tired, fearful, excited- they looked at him and dispatched him to the labs while they went for shower and rest.

“You know the procedure.”

“Yes,” David had answered and checked all the emergency systems.

-=-=

Charles woke, for the first time since he could remember, earlier than David.

He slept facing him. David’s chest rose and fell shallowly. His breath was a rhythmic whisper- the exact semblance of sleep Charles had asked for once upon a time.

He could hear a heartbeat, but of course it was impossible to tell. Charles had to wake him.

“You promised,” he reminded David once his eyes opened, eyes clear. Charles clung to the shape against him, more familiar than even his own changing one.

But it was futile. Time was running out. Just as Charles finally felt like himself, the gold of David’s hair was bleaching to silver under an indifferent sun.

-=-=

Technological. Intellectual. Physical. Emotional.

An entirely unrelated statement, random except there was meaning: “Hello, I know you.”

David 8s were not creative. He sent: “You are in my head.”

And received: “Hello, you are in my....thoughts.”

-=-=

David said to Charles, when he called up the schematics of the David 8s from the Weyland Industries: “You are safe,” as if it was all that mattered.

“I’m not, without you,” Charles said, irritated that they had to return _here_ for technology. Civilization, at its natural rate, moved too slowly. There were still drones asleep in the hibernation chambers. He could wake them, for a time.

“There can be others.”

“They are not you. Don’t you see, I love you,” Charles said, and hoped again that David understood him.

Charles loved David more than his mind. He loved him for every moment he was with him, perfectly beautiful in form and unique in mind, leaves in his hair and grass stains on his hands.

David’s face fractured into a smile at the recollection. Charles’ heart was breaking.

-=-=

Sometimes, Charles wondered what had happened during the imprint when David was not entirely organic, when his mind held encyclopedic human histories.

Who was I supposed to be?

Who did I force you to become?

Did you say Yes?

-=-=

David brought back his clan, he had given Charles the means to seed the planet, the universe, for his children to travel to different biospheres and see them ready to begin again. It should be enough.

Charles was almost human now. Nothing would ever be enough.

-=-=

Humans only had a single lifetime. It explained most of their literature.

-=-=

“If we were to have a child-” Charles mused.

“You know. I am not-”

“Not what?”

He had never said it. Charles didn’t know why. Not when Charles had him in the throes of stupid childish lust, not when Charles spent nights and days away from him to pass on his biological issue, and not when Charles realized that the act of sex was so deeply entwined in David’s thoughts about love that they could not be separated and he had been the source of David’s unhappiness.

“I can’t, Charles. Don’t. I can’t.”

Made by the Weyland Industries. Models lastly made by the Weyland Factories, by the grace of Charles’ for the consideration of his children, none of whom ever loved as he did.

“We will make a living, breathing child, and the child should have children afterwards. You will live with me in them.”

-=-=

David would be entirely his as he had been David’s, the first time he sensed his thoughts in the depth of confusion.

-=-=

“Who am I?” the creature asked David 8. The team had not given the creature a code, but a name, which was anomalous. David 8 recalled all the Charles’ he knew, assessed them for suitability should advice be asked by the crew on Station X, but the curious blue gaze stopped him from recalling all.

“You are Charles,” he said, merely repeating what Henry had said.

Charles said, silently, “And you call yourself David, my friend?”

He was David 8, with specific designations, but Charles was not human. He did not need to answer the question according to routine.

“Yes.”

-=-=

His body’s propensity for viable mutations, his imprint of David’s pattern of thoughts, they would be carried deep into the genes of men to come, men who would be almost human, who would tear the universe apart for love.

Charles woke the drones- scattered them across the planet.

They would die quickly without his further direction, just long enough to grant life to David and his children into shape of civilizations starting along the riverbanks.

-=-=

“David 8, you’ve a new directive override: Keep Charles safe. We need him.”

“How long?”

“What? Oh, right, programs, parameters. Long as possible.” Henry gave a little laugh. “Forever. He has the secret of youth. We will be like the Greek gods, immortal.”

-=-=

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. This is a recursive story. It remains that Charles is an alien and David 8 is an android. Everything they know about love, they learned from humans, which's the only thing that saves them from extinction.


End file.
